Mirrored Grieving
by AshenMoon42
Summary: I cannot do anything without thinking that it would be better with two. I consider giving up, but he'd think me a coward, so I live, however much it kills me to do so. / Grief. Pain. Bitter emptiness. This is George without Fred.


**Another one that was on Fall of an Angel, but I thought it would be better here.**

 **Enjoy, and tell me what you think!**

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Every time I look in the mirror, or onto a skiving snackbox, my heart aches with the weight of a thousand memories.

My brother. My twin. My other half. Gone.

The shop seems cold and empty with no Fred beside me to laugh and joke and finish my sentences. He isn't there to play pranks with me or to test our products. I can't keep doing it. Not when a phantom voice whispers beside me, suggesting what he would say. Not when I stop in mid-sentence to allow him to finish it. So I close the shop, closing a multitude of pains with it. It lies under a mountain of dust and grief.

The bedroom seems grey and dull. The bed across from mine sits unslept in and perfectly made. Fred never made his bed. Ever. So I don't touch it, lest it become another painful memory. There is a long writing desk, too. I only need half of it. The rest was his. And I have two pairs of everything. Two different expensive dragonhide suits. Two pairs of every type of shoe. Two green shirts. Two blue shirts. Two white shirts. Two … everything. There is double of everything. So I sell the other bed and I buy a smaller desk and I give half my clothes to my younger brother, or to charity.

The Burrow is so different, without laughter, or explosions, or pranks. It isn't just limited to the bedroom - we used to prank Mum and Percy and Ginny and Ron. Now I can't. Not on my own. Not without his voice ringing in my head. Not without another pair of ghostly footsteps echoing beside me. Not without a knife piercing my heart and twisting. Slowly twisting to make it more painful. So no pranks. No more stupid jokes.

I can't bring myself to speak to Lee Jordan anymore. Because Fred was his friend a whole two seconds before me. In the dormitory, his bed was nearer Fred's then mine. In a quidditch match, he'd say Fred's name in that voice he used only for commentating. _And a bludger hit by Fred Weasley spins towards him … brilliant, Fred - beat those slimy snakes! Sorry, Professor._ So I avoid him in fear of hearing him utter that name again.

Angelina cries, too. I see her, but I won't go near. She sees him in me, just as I see him in her. They went to the Yule Ball together. They danced. Fred had told me that they even kissed. They'd dated for a while before he … before he left us. And the way she looks at me - her coffee brown eyes churning with pain, her brow furrowing with something that might have been regret, her hands shaking or clenched into fists. She feels the sorrow, just as I do. But I keep away from her. Even if I can't deny that she's pretty.

I can't even hold a conversation with my own family. The red hair, the freckles … too raw, too similar. And I know what they think when they look at me; they think of him. Because we are identical. _Were_ identical. He had a mole on his little toe on his right foot. I have, but on my left. But that's it. We are - _were_ \- the same height and everything. I break down crying when I stay in their company too long. When one of them accidentally calls me Fred, they look down in sadness, and to apologise. They think I'm delicate. They think I can't stand even a whisper of his name. They're right, I guess. It hurts. I can't look at Mum without thinking that she bore Fred with me, and that she gave birth to him a whole three minutes before. I can't look at Bill or Charlie without remembering that they taught us our first ever prank. I can't look at Percy without remembering the amount of times we mocked him together. I can't look at Ron without remembering that Fred had been the one to cause his fear of spiders. I can't look at Ginny without remembering how we used to tease her about being the only girl in the family, or how we sent her a Hogwarts toilet seat during our third year while Mum was away visiting Aunt Muriel.

I cannot do anything without thinking that it would be better with two.

I consider giving up. I consider that the world is nothing when loneliness will never leave my heart. When there is an empty space beside me. But I don't. I won't because he would hate me for it. _What kind of Gryffindor are you?_ He would ask. _How can you just … give up?_ He'd tell me to live. So I do, no matter how much it kills me to do so.

The funeral had been grey. So very bland and boring. The two of us had been planning our funeral for years. It would be full of joy and laughter and pranks, with free firewhiskey and bright orange tombstones. But we'd planned a _shared_ funeral, for both of us. We'd never considered that one would be living while the other was … was not. So there was silence, and everyone wore grey or black, and there was not even butterbeer, never mind free firewhiskey. The tombstone was black marble, and I didn't even have a choice in the matter. Not that I wanted choice. Not that I could bear the agony of planning my twin's funeral … it felt like I was planning my own. And how could I be given any responsibility anyway, when I let him go?

After the funeral, I took all the mirrors down that I had access to. I'd look in the reflective surface and see Fred. I'd see Fred with puffy red eyes with purple bags beneath them. I'd see Fred with pale, unhealthy skin. I'd see Fred without George. I'd see pain and anger and grief resting on the face that I recognized as his. And then I'd see tears pouring down my face - _my_ face, I'd think, not his - and I'd weep and weep and weep. And I'd see the grief in my own eyes, the same as his, and it was like I was dying, because I could never stand seeing his face when it wasn't wearing a smile. I couldn't bear seeing him in pain, sobbing and howling, even if I _knew_ it wasn't really him. Because the looks were his, and I could see every inch of his grief in _his_ face. The grief was mirrored and perfectly real. This was Fred without George. This was George without Fred.


End file.
